Grungehamster:...before going into another topic within the next month to claim the EPA should be eliminated because it exists only a tool for Obama to attempt to strike down capitalism.

They've done that ever since the EPA was in Jimmy Carter's hands! Other things that are an "evil socialist conspiracy to bring down capitalism" - OSHA, Peace Corps, the Consumer Credit Protection Act, Unemployment Insurance, and many others.

Pocket Ninja:The problem with these "OMG the sky is falling" climate-change horror predictions is that nobody looks at the big pictures. Oceanographers just look at oceans, Geographers just look at earth. Weatherographers just look at their latest Super Doppler7000 and circle their arms around weather patterns. And so on.

See, data is meaningless when it's taken as an isolated point. See, for example, here's a piece of data:

2230

Impressive, right? Now, if I just told you that number and said it was vitally important, what would happen? I'll tell you what: an entire realm of science would pop into being dedicated to finding out what that number means, how it impacts our life. By the time the 2230ists were finished, the Theory of 2230 would relate to everything. Then other scientists would come along and say, no, you guys are wrong, the real Theory of 2230 is *this*. And so on, and so on, and so on. That's what scientists *do*. They create meaning for things, then other scientists create another meaning, then they argue, then the government gives them grant money.

And here's the kicker: the truth is that 2230 *is* important, but each of them is just looking at it in isolation. Without understanding the big picture. They don't know how all the parts fit together, or even what the parts are. And so they're all wrong.

Don't get it? OK, let's try it this way. Let's pull back the lens a bit, subby, take a look at the situation you're describing. Water levels are rising. Oooh, scary. They're rising faster than predicted. OOOOOOH, scarier. But what happens when you increase the total amount of water in a given surface? Hm?

Volume, remember that? The water's volume increases. OK, see that's something that an oceanographer doesn't consider, because it's about math. So tell me: what happens when a water's volume increases?

That's right, very good. The water becomes heavier. Because there's more of it. Need proof? Here's an experiment for you to conduct: pick up a 5-gallon jug of water. Now pick up a 1-gallon jug. Which is heavier?

So what happens when the water's weight increases? Well, now we're into geography, another part of the big picture. The heavier water pushes down on the ocean's floor. Now, in some places, that will actually make the ocean deeper -- sort of like when the bottom of a plastic dish bows outward. In other places, though, the heavier water won't be able to actually move the floor, but will put tremendous pressure on it. TREMENDOUS pressure. And what happens when you put tremendous pressure on the earth's crust?

That's right, volcanoes. See, now we're into volcanology, which teaches us that magma, which is produced by volcanoes, is earth's building material. The pressure produced by the rising sea will force volcanic eruptions of magma to the surface, which in effect will create new land. So, even as the oceans are rising, land is rising, too. This is how planets get bigger, subby (and -- see? -- we're into astrology now). Do you think the Earth was always this same size? No! Thousands upon thousands of years ago it was much smaller. There was also a lot less water. Now we have lots of water, and lots of land. A few thousand years from now, there will be even more of both. It's the natural way of things. It's science. SCIENCE. But not science studied in isolation, subby. Science as part of the greater whole.

So what happens when the water's weight increases? Well, now we're into geography, another part of the big picture. The heavier water pushes down on the ocean's floor. Now, in some places, that will actually make the ocean deeper -- sort of like when the bottom of a plastic dish bows outward. In other places, though, the heavier water won't be able to actually move the floor, but will put tremendous pressure on it. TREMENDOUS pressure. And what happens when you put tremendous pressure on the earth's crust?

For all your going-on about "the big picture," you failed to do so yourself.

That "extra weight" already exists,in Arctic & Antarctic ice.As it melts and mingles with seawater, it will actually distribute that weight over a larger area. You're not going to get enough localized pressure to trigger a volcanic reaction.

You might want to know that none of the sensationalist magazine covers you posted had anything to do with "global cooling." The upper left one was about a crunch in heating oil prices and the lower right one was about a drop in industrial production from a massive coal strike.

MaliFinn:Obviously, we need to detonate the Yellowstone caldera to trigger a supervolcano and rapidly cool the Earth for 100 years or so.

GTFO. You all can stay there on the coasts and drown, since you're all too good for "fly-over country" anyway. This is OUR turf.

fluffy2097:spentmiles: mankind has managed to destroy a 4.5 billion year old planet.Oh please. We haven't destroyed the earth. The earth, and life will go on just as it has for ages.We just won't be on earth anymore. We have destroyed ourselves.

spentmiles:In the 260 years since the Industrial Revolution, mankind has managed to destroy a 4.5 billion year old planet. Despite the negative press, you really have to marvel at our power. We are a truly unique and innovative species with more power sitting on our shoulders than all the suns in the universe. If there is life out there on other planets, I cannot imagine it even coming close to our immense strength. We shall rule the universe just as we've ruled the apes of our own planet. Bow at our feet or suffer our wrath!

Yep, you didn't just fail science classes AND reading classes, you never even attended them.

Kesherz:Pocket Ninja: So what happens when the water's weight increases? Well, now we're into geography, another part of the big picture. The heavier water pushes down on the ocean's floor. Now, in some places, that will actually make the ocean deeper -- sort of like when the bottom of a plastic dish bows outward. In other places, though, the heavier water won't be able to actually move the floor, but will put tremendous pressure on it. TREMENDOUS pressure. And what happens when you put tremendous pressure on the earth's crust?

For all your going-on about "the big picture," you failed to do so yourself.

That "extra weight" already exists,in Arctic & Antarctic ice.As it melts and mingles with seawater, it will actually distribute that weight over a larger area. You're not going to get enough localized pressure to trigger a volcanic reaction.

Well obviously, when that weight is removed the ground underneath "springs back", displacing the water and making it "appear" to rise. The volume of H2O is unchanged. Duh.

fluffy2097:spentmiles: mankind has managed to destroy a 4.5 billion year old planet.

Oh please. We haven't destroyed the earth. The earth, and life will go on just as it has for ages.We just won't be on earth anymore. We have destroyed ourselves.

Not even that. Global warming, even the very direst predictions of it, won't make our species extinct. The danger is to our way of life, our organizations and that people's lives in local areas could be in jeopardy. There is danger, just not the danger of extinction.

Cythraul:Pocket Ninja: The problem with these "OMG the sky is falling" climate-change horror predictions is that nobody looks at the big pictures. Oceanographers just look at oceans, Geographers just look at earth. Weatherographers just look at their latest Super Doppler7000 and circle their arms around weather patterns. And so on.

See, data is meaningless when it's taken as an isolated point. See, for example, here's a piece of data:

Pocket Ninja:See, now we're into volcanology, which teaches us that magma, which is produced by volcanoes, is earth's building material. The pressure produced by the rising sea will force volcanic eruptions of magma to the surface, which in effect will create new land. So, even as the oceans are rising, land is rising, too. This is how planets get bigger

You magnificent bastard. I'll be willing to bet one of my clipped toenails that your entire hypothesis ends up repeated nearly word for word across climate hoaxer websites across the world for eternity.

Pocket Ninja:The problem with these "OMG the sky is falling" climate-change horror predictions is that nobody looks at the big pictures. Oceanographers just look at oceans, Geographers just look at earth. Weatherographers just look at their latest Super Doppler7000 and circle their arms around weather patterns. And so on...

*SNIP*

This...this is another example of why you're highlighted in green and one of my favorites.

PocketNinja is an alien brought from another planet to amuse the ever-loving shiat out of us while they take over.

Why do so many people still believe these computer models when every few months an announcement is made that they were wrong and that the world is actually heating up at a more rapid pace than originally predicted by the computer models? I have a strong hunch that these inaccuracies strongly correlate with the expiration of grant funding.

Mercury!, Getcha red-hot Mercury today! Right here! Great for the kids! Doubles as a pesticide! Ya can't get enough Mercury! Buy today! Crappy light, but expensive! It's win-win! For us, anyway! Mercury! All you suckers fine people just line up right over there for ya Mercury!

Are these the same researchers who said we would have no snow by this point?

Are these the same researches who said there would be hundreds of thousands of climate change refuges by this point?

Are these the same researches who said there would be more frequent hurricanes? On that note, are these the same researches who run forward after every single solitary weather related disaster to proclaim that this is "climate change" even if its contradictory to what they said the last time?

I'm still laughing over the fact that lack of snowfall in a particular area of Canada was "climate change" but then massive snow fall just a few months later in a portion of the United States was "just weather, not climate".

CornerPocket:Why do so many people still believe these computer models when every few months an announcement is made that they were wrong and that the world is actually heating up at a more rapid pace than originally predicted by the computer models? I have a strong hunch that these inaccuracies strongly correlate with the expiration of grant funding.

[i1103.photobucket.com image 280x280]

Mercury!, Getcha red-hot Mercury today! Right here! Great for the kids! Doubles as a pesticide! Ya can't get enough Mercury! Buy today! Crappy light, but expensive! It's win-win! For us, anyway! Mercury! All you suckers fine people just line up right over there for ya Mercury!

You know who tells us that mercury is bad for us? Scientists!! You know ... the same ones that say AGW is real.

Why do you feel mercury is bad if scientists are all lying scumbags scamming for their next grant?!?

randomjsa:Are these the same researchers who said we would have no snow by this point?

Nope. Worst case scenarios are not actually proposed as likely. If scientists do not list what is possible and the unlikely extreme actually happens, Luddites like yourself get all pitchforky. See recent events in Italy.

Predictions are made with ranges usually with Gaussian distributions. This means that the center of the range of the prediction and the extreme that you keep harping on and on about is actually highly unlikely.

LovingTeacher:Pocket Ninja: The problem with these "OMG the sky is falling" climate-change horror predictions is that nobody looks at the big pictures. Oceanographers just look at oceans, Geographers just look at earth. Weatherographers just look at their latest Super Doppler7000 and circle their arms around weather patterns. And so on.

See, data is meaningless when it's taken as an isolated point. See, for example, here's a piece of data:

2230

Impressive,

This is the most impressive I've seen from you so far, kudos to you sir. Keep up the effort. You have made my morning, maybe I will even share this with my physics class and show them the wisdom of the internet.

2230 is just plagarizing the '42' concept from HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Farking Canuck:randomjsa: Are these the same researchers who said we would have no snow by this point?

Nope. Worst case scenarios are not actually proposed as likely. If scientists do not list what is possible and the unlikely extreme actually happens, Luddites like yourself get all pitchforky. See recent events in Italy.

Predictions are made with ranges usually with Gaussian distributions. This means that the center of the range of the prediction and the extreme that you keep harping on and on about is actually highly unlikely.

So then we're not going to have extreme climate changes? Cool - we can all relax then!

Farking Canuck:CornerPocket: Why do so many people still believe these computer models when every few months an announcement is made that they were wrong and that the world is actually heating up at a more rapid pace than originally predicted by the computer models? I have a strong hunch that these inaccuracies strongly correlate with the expiration of grant funding.

[i1103.photobucket.com image 280x280]

Mercury!, Getcha red-hot Mercury today! Right here! Great for the kids! Doubles as a pesticide! Ya can't get enough Mercury! Buy today! Crappy light, but expensive! It's win-win! For us, anyway! Mercury! All you suckers fine people just line up right over there for ya Mercury!

You know who tells us that mercury is bad for us? Scientists!! You know ... the same ones that say AGW is real.

Why do you feel mercury is bad if scientists are all lying scumbags scamming for their next grant?!?

Didn't say all of 'em were. Some are. Just like policemen, office workers, landscape architects, and every other segment of society. I knew a medicinal chemistry professor from India who was the smartest and most honest human being I ever met. Nevertheless, anybody who tells you that the research on climate change is refined enough to inform public policy today is just wrong or a very wishful thinker. Hence all the revisions. I don't deny the research is potentially useful, but it's in its infancy and has no real predictive power yet. Again, I believe this due to all the revisions that have consistently appeared. Yet the scam artists are trying to use this quite incomplete and impractical data to drive policy, frighten people for their own gain (because that's what such people always do), and make a few bucks in the process. Also, the toxicity of mercury is easily demonstrable and repeatable in any decently appointed pharmacology lab. Not so with climate change. That doesn't invalidate climate science, it just makes it much fuzzier (and less well developed) than toxicology. That Washington would allow such a product to hit the market makes me very uncomfortable. Ultimately, though, I think this will turn out like the common cold. Nobody's trying to find a cure for it anymore, like they used to. At least according to what I read. There is no way to predict effectively the level and direction of the antigenic shifts and drifts of the garden-variety rhinovirus over time. Climate change ultimately will turn out the same, IMHO. No collection of people, no matter how smart, are going to be able to predict the behavior of any system as complex as the Earth's climate. As Yogi Berra said: "Predictions are tricky, especially when they involve the future."

E=mc2. = science. Nuclear reactors in good repair behave exactly as predicted by relativity theory, at least to the limits of the uncertainty principle.

"I can tell you how hot the world will be in 100 years. Cause that's what my computer program says." = not so much.

Well played, though. I had to work on that response for much longer than ususal.

BTW, I love Canada. Especially PEI. My wife and I used to travel there every summer. Now, with the kids, it's a lot harder. Nicest people I ever met were the locals on that Island.